Coronavirus Impact on Air Travel

That question is one that any enquiring journalist might want to ask at the daily press conference. Sadly, there's a shortage of enquiring journalists!

A cynic might suggest that in putting in quarantine here, the government might avoid the risk that Spain, Greece etc would open up to inbound tourism from "safe" countries, but label the UK as not yet being safe. I don't see a new case tally stubbornly running at 2,500 per day as safe, compared with the likes of Spain, Portugal, Greece or much of central Europe.

Agree with you there AT... where are the enquiring minds in journalism? Even the so-called good ones are only interested in using words to trick politicians in to saying silly things. What about questions like 'tell us what the scientific evidence was taking this decision or that decision' Instead we get lazy stuff like 'will you or won't you personally guarantee that absolutely everybody in the country will be 100% safe'. Cases aren't going down here because we are testing way more people now. Look and you will find. The lazy way to get new cases down is to stop testing.

Spain today (PM Sanchez) said the famous R rate that the UK go on about at their daily press briefings is now 0.2. I fail to understand why Spain would want tourists from the UK just yet, as the new cases are far too high and the dreaded R rate is about 0.9.

If it was only that I'd agree. Thing is we have some evidence now of what has and hasn't worked. The government decided to indoctrinate the population with a (literally) made-up 2m distancing rule against WHO guidance of 1m and the knowledge that most other countries opted to be 'on the safe side' specifying 1.5m. This is the fake science another poster referred to. Going for 2m in this country has upped the ante in the UK and has terrified the population in to thinking that somehow by walking past someone on the street you will get the virus... and probably die a death worse than ebola and cancer rolled into one. The nation is petrified because of this inept government's choices. The fact the UK choose 2m and other countries with much better outcomes choose 1.5m is evidence that it makes no difference. Are they going to change the 2m rule against the evidence? Are they ****. The trouble is even if they wanted to, they now can't because they created a rod for their own back. If they even suggested it, the self-righteous 'I'm saving the NHS' brigade will howl with terror. The government has painted itself into a corner. The 2m rule effectively makes whole sections of the economy redundant or unviable, in particular, aviation. Boris thinks he won a landslide because people like him but he won by virtue of him being not quite as stupid as Jeremy Corbyn but surely even Corbyn couldn't have screwed up this badly.

Fake science, the linked article below suggests not - there are even arguments for 4 or 6 metres, and that the combination of distance and duration are important.

Quote:

And one leading scientist says that timing can really make a difference. "Spending two seconds one metre apart is as dangerous as spending one minute two metres apart," he says.

July 1st seems to be restart some normality at least we should be able to go to Spain for holiday and not have to quarantine whilst there, this could be the first chance to get a nice pint in a pub...happy days...oops then we have to sit at home for 2 weeks afterwards oh well at least we had two weeks of freedom

Actually you don’t know the current levels of infection because the state are managing that information stream .

The R number is certainly manipulated and emphasis on the raw death numbers rather than percentages has scared the population into sense of fear that is probably not called for.

Condolences to those that have fallen victim and all their families including all those in the NHS and those in care homes where frankly the national response has been pitiful to say the least.

The levels of minor infection and recovery rates should be far more prominently reported and understood imho.

Its far from a death sentence for the vast vast majority and indeed huge areas of the U.K. have little or just few and in the case of some rural areas NO reported infections .

Even in the high death rated areas the figures need to be more nuanced especially when those very high levels such as Harrow have receiving hospitals serving several neighbouring boroughs and even further afield .

The two metre zone is purely political and without much international evidence of its effectiveness, indeed other countries use a much smaller zone when social distancing

The UK government initiatives - late to the party have always been primarily targeted at reducing the risk burden to the heath service facilities rather than containing the spread . Indeed they don’t deny this explicit intention - They went for a LONGER period of risk time however believed that would somehow reduce the potential burdens .

They expected large levels of infections in some the inner cities hence those emergency facilities . None were really needed in hindsight and anyway they couldn’t even staff them .

As to the now proposed two week quarantine on return for other EU states in particular this is I believe another attempt at populism based on poor scientific evidence and yes a level xenophobia over a certain other pressing issue.

This country including myself ( layed off) absolutely need to accelerate the return to productivity and work pretty much right now imho.

Globally second waves haven’t caused significantly more rapid reinfection from what I see and read .

The economic damage done combined with with another political movement has probably seen the end of rather many 50 + olds careers rather to early.

Sufice to say I also expect the EU/EEA quarantine period to evaporate within weeks right now.

As to the now proposed two week quarantine on return for other EU states in particular this is I believe another attempt at populism based on poor scientific evidence and yes a level xenophobia over a certain other pressing issue.

If you stop people travelling abroad they have to spend money in the country................ economically they will want it.

Post Black Death there was massive xenophobia that foreigners brought the disease and should be shunned..................... it will happen here again.

It is perhaps worth noting that plenty of countries are taking the 'foreigners not wanted as they all have plague' approach. You are unlikely to see country A admitting country B's citizens while country B bans all A's citizens. Schengen rules on freedom of movement do not apply right now. Greece for example which is highly dependent on inbound tourism to its islands has said very explicitly that people from the UK are not welcome for the time being. Foreigners will be reluctant to visit the UK while the death rate is high

If the aim is to revive the UK's aviation sector then the UK's priority should be to demonstrate to other countries that both cases and deaths are few - this is the only way to persuade other countries to gain confidence and open their borders. People living in the UK are not going to be booking flights if they see a risk of being quarantined at their own additional cost when they wanted a week on the beach. Of course some may say that reviving the UK's domestic business (eg pubs, High St shops, factories and offices) takes a higher priority than the travel sector.

Deeply frustrating for those in the transport and travel industries, but having dithered/delayed and generally messed up in Feb/March, the UK has landed in the naughty corner and has to show it can be trusted on disease management instead of holidaying Brits bringing microscopic unwelcome guests to other countries

Deeply frustrating for those in the transport and travel industries, but having dithered/delayed and generally messed up in Feb/March, the UK has landed in the naughty corner and has to show it can be trusted on disease management instead of holidaying Brits bringing microscopic unwelcome guests to other countries

Not sure how you reach that conclusion as the other countries want UK tourists - France is saying that it will only impose a quarantine on UK visitors if the UK doesn't exempt France from any restrictions.

Countries are going for the tit for tat approach at the moment, you want us to isolate for 14 days so will you ! This will stop business trips how does a businessman for example do a day troip to France if they have to isolate for 14 days or are countries going to break their own rules ?

Excuse me if I am being thick ! If it comes down to the R rate ! at which the government says its between 0.7 and 1 -- (this is the number of people a person with Covid 19 passes it onto !) Yes you can pass it onto 1 person or at worst more, but how do you pass it onto 0.7 of a person (3/4 of a person) So surely the rate has always got to be 1 or above ?

Equally it was amazing how just before the deadline for 100,000 tests the figures said it was acheived, and again 200,000 by the end of May and the figures suddenly go up again ? Are we being told the truth or just like the Cummings case the gov is just doing what they want and telling us anything.

See rumours that various airlines including TUI were expecting to fly to Spain in mid June (guess that wont happen now). Greece do not want UK tourists, I live in Scotland an area with low cases compared to the rest of the UK and was going to a Greek island a place with almost no cases ! But because we are in the UK and the flight was from Manchester also not allowed. Basically all of this is irrelevant considering the FCO is still advising no non essential travel.

Excuse me if I am being thick ! If it comes down to the R rate ! at which the government says its between 0.7 and 1 -- (this is the number of people a person with Covid 19 passes it onto !) Yes you can pass it onto 1 person or at worst more, but how do you pass it onto 0.7 of a person (3/4 of a person) So surely the rate has always got to be 1 or above ?

You're excused. The R figure will be calculated as the average across the infected population. There'll be some people who don't pass it on to anyone, but some who pass it on to more than one person, hence why a value of less than one is arithmetically possible.

Thanks for your explanation, as we all know the gov are great at using percentages ! I watch the daily coronavirus update each day (nothing better to do) and I look at some of their graphs and wonder how they come to these percentages. Normally done by polls etc but not many people about so personally I think lots of the figures are manipulated !